Influence of surface modified dental implant abutments on connective tissue attachment: A systematic review

Objective: Determine whether surface modified prosthetic abutments for dental implants influence connective tissue attachment to the implant-abutment system.

Design: A systematic review was conducted using the MEDLINE-PubMed database, with two independent reviewers filtering the titles and abstracts. Two reviewers assessed all potentially relevant articles. An assessment was carried out on the level of evidence of the research according to the guidelines of the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM).

Results: After an initial search, 109 potentially relevant articles were found. After reading the titles and abstracts, 99 articles were excluded because the surface treatment was limited to the implant and not to the abutment, or because different materials were analysed instead of surface treatments; 28 were also duplicate articles. An additional 6 research studies were included that were of interest and were found by reading the references of the included articles. The studies included are: 7 in vitro studies, 5 experimental studies in animals, 2 clinical trials in humans and 2 clinical cases.

Conclusion: Surface modification for prosthetic abutments on dental implants can achieve connective tissue attachment to the abutment; however, more studies should be conducted in humans to obtain more and better evidence of these results.